Measurement of the integration level between the digital economy and industry and its impact on energy consumption

The integration of the digital economy and industry is the product of economic and social development and acts as an important driving force for conserving energy and reducing emissions. This study establishes the measurement index system of the integration level between the digital economy and industry from basis, conditions, and application of integration. Taking China as the research sample, this study chose 1999–2018 as the research period. The entropy weight TOPSIS method was employed to determine the integration level between the digital economy and industry. Next, a Bayesian vector autoregressive model was utilized to quantitatively analyze the impact of China's integration level between the digital economy and industry on energy consumption. The results indicate that China's integration level between the digital economy and industry shows a fluctuating upward trend with slow growth during the study period, and still has great development potential. The improvement of China's integration level between the digital economy and industry is conducive to the improvement of industrial energy efficiency, its consumption structure and environmental protection. Among them, the integration level between the digital economy and industry contributes the most to the change in the energy consumption structure and has the lightest impact on energy efficiency. Therefore, the government might make full use of green financial services to promote the integrated development of the digital economy and industry so as to achieve energy transformation and sustainable development.